Why engaging Iran on the nuclear program makes more sense now than ever
Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 12:06AM 
Charles Kupchan, almost always a terrifically reasonable fellow, in the Moscow Times on the need to talk with Iran. Item found via WPR's Media Roundup.
Highlights:
With diplomacy having failed to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions, critics of engagement charge, it is time to resort to coercion before Iran crosses the nuclear Rubicon. A rising chorus of voices now forswears engagement with Iran’s rulers, insisting that it is time for the regime to go.
But closing off dialogue with Iran would be a precipitous and dangerous mistake. Even fierce adversaries can settle their differences through negotiation. The United States and its allies should keep the door open to dialogue until the 11th hour for four compelling reasons.
First, tighter sanctions make sense only as a diplomatic tool, not as a blunt instrument of coercion . . .
Second, the costs of abandoning diplomacy are so high that continued engagement makes sense even as Iran refuses to budge . . .
A military strike would likely have worse consequences. Even if a strike were an operational success, it would only set back Iran’s nuclear program by several years, while giving the regime a new incentive to acquire a nuclear deterrent and build better hidden and defended nuclear facilities . . .
The third reason for pursuing dialogue is that factional infighting and political intrigue within the Iranian regime make for considerable political fluidity . . .
Finally, even as stalemate continues on Iran’s uranium enrichment, continued engagement may offer a roundabout means of arriving at a bargain on the nuclear issue. Dialogue with the United States could focus on areas, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, where the two parties share a measure of common ground. Joint efforts to combat drug trafficking in Afghanistan, for example . .
With Iran having spurned Obama’s offers of compromise, it is tempting for the U.S. administration to turn its back on dialogue. But the stakes are too high to abandon engagement.
Basically agree, but simply caution that I believe the impetus for talking will only get stronger once Iran inevitably fields those nuclear weapons in a way that's recognized by the world.
No, I don't think talking will stop this, but I think the practice is worthwhile, whether or not Israel strikes or not. The challenge cannot be wished away or bombed away or ignored. Practice will never make perfect here, but it will build up some semblance of a dialogue, and that matters when the alternative is isolating and demonizing a new nuclear power.
Would I prefer Iran without nukes? Who wouldn't? But this isn't about our preferences anymore; it's about dealing with a reality that rushing toward us while we prefer to engage in a lot of diplomatic escapism.
Reader Comments (1)
Is it possible that the Obama foreign policy team is more clever than anyone gives them credit for being? Obama has to know that the US is locked into an untenable position on Iran. We have drawn a line in the sand that we know Iran is going to cross and there is nothing we can do to stop it. Domestic US politics makes it impossible to erase the line, and domestic Iranian politics makes it impossible for them not to cross it. Faced with this vise, perhaps we have used deep back-channels to have a long-standing ally, Turkey, come forward as a proxy to break the logjam with Iran. Publicly, the US frets that Turkey is turning against "US interests" and Israel and its political allies in the US go about the business of demonizing Turkey. All of this merely enhances Turkey's status in the Muslim world and makes it more likely that Turkey can open the door for an ultimate engagement with Iran, since the Iranian leadership would never deal with a country that was publicly perceived as America's proxy. I haven't given up on the possibility that someday Obama will lead a "Nixon goes to China" opening to Iran that will finally change the face of the Middle East. Hope springs eternal.